


If Anyone

by QueenofQuill



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofQuill/pseuds/QueenofQuill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If anyone was going to fall in love with someone outwith their own people, it was these two unique beings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Anyone

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought that if I wrote a Kiliel fic it would either be a modern AU or Tauriel would be alive after the battle and have a child by Kili. 
> 
> I may do that some day. We have seen characters born of men and elves. It would be really interesting to see one born of dwarfs and elves. 
> 
> But I was thinking about these two characters and why they might fall for each other and I think they both had to be dead for a sense of pragmatism. 
> 
> Hope it's all good. Please review.

It is strange that a battlefield should be such a cold place. Hot rage swelled in places like this but after a battle was over all that was left was cold wind, cold, abandoned steel and dried blood no longer warm from the body it was spilled from. 

Looking for the bodies of loved ones was a task that no-one wanted to undertake and yet no-one refused. If your loved one was lying alone in a cold battlefield you would want to be the one to take them away from the violence that was their death and lay them to rest in a more peaceful place.

Brothers were laid out side by side. Dwarfs, elves and men all wanted those they loved, remembered with fondness ... or even just knew in passing, to be with those they loved in death.

However, on this particular battle, two people who should have been laid together more than anyone were far apart. 

_______

Kili was always an odd child. Like most children he had the ability to drive his mother up the wall but what was different about Kili was that he simply refused to conform to what was expected of a dwarven prince. 

Thorin too had banged his head against the wall many times when it came to his youngest nephew. In the end he decided that he could afford to let Kili be his own person. Let the dwarf elders shake their head an cluck their tongues as the whirlwind that was Prince Kili flew past them in the council hall with hair unbraided and bow in hand making his way to the archery range. 

While other dwarf children grappled to get their hands on steel to train with, Kili grabbed a bow the first time he saw one and hadn't stopped letting arrows fly since. While other dwarf youths became smith apprentices to their fathers, whether it be fine weaponry or fine jewellery, Kili was carving little figures out of wood using his hunting knife. While other dwarfs got their food and furs from the markets of men, Kili was out hunting his own meat and tanning his own hides. 

While other dwarfs looked for gems in the depths of the earth, Kili climbed the trees to get a better look at the stars. 

"They are so far away. I will never be able to reach them," the young prince had said to his brother one night.

"Then why do you stare at them so," Fili inquired, ever confused when it came to his brother's mind, "when there are so many gems that are so much more attainable in the earth, right at our feet?"

"It's because they are so unattainable that stare. Anyone can learn to mine and take home a treasure of the earth. How many people can they pocketed a star? It's like another world. Imagine what it would be like to walk there."

If any dwarf was going to fall in love with an elf it was going to be Kili.

_______

Despite the fact that there wasn't much of it, Tauriel could remember life before being a soldier. 

She lived in a tiny village on the fringes of Mirkwood, the youngest in the vicinity by more than half a millennia. Her parents she could remember less clearly. They were like a jigsaw puzzle that she could never quite get to match up. Still though, she remembered her father's wild, red hair, his strong arms that so often rocked her and most of all she remembered his deep, smooth voice. She remembered him telling her that he used to be a foot soldier in the king's army and he had seen the horrors of war but had given it all up after meeting her mother.

Her mother was a much simpler elf. She had grown up in the tiny village Tauriel was born in, playing music and telling tales for a living. She had black hair and a smile that was the epitome of carefree. Unlike Tauriel's father she wasn't tall, but she was strong and had a spirit that her daughter was sure could withstand anything. 

Tauriel had grown up running barefoot through the forest and climbing the trees to breath in the air outside Mirkwood and dream about what lay beyond. She had grown up unable to read and write, instead she carved old runes she had heard described in her mother's tales onto the trees. 

She couldn't have been happier in those days but those days were not to last. She was only into the first few decades of her life when the Orcs came. Her village was the first and only to be hit seeing as it was the closest to edge of Mirkwood. Thankfully though, there were a lot of trees in between the edge of the forest and the edge of her village so border guards had managed to send for help from palace. The army got their in time to drive the Orcs off and stop them from getting further into Mirkwood but they weren't in time to save her village ... or her parents. 

One would think that a little village on the fringes of the forest wouldn't be worth the King's time but he came in person to assess the damage and work out what was to be done about the survivors. 

She didn't see the King that day but she caught a glimpse of the Prince. She didn't know how old he was but she was sure he was well over his first millennia. He was everything she expected a Prince to look like. He was tall, fair of face yet serious looking and had long, cascading hair that was almost white with how fair it was. He spare some of the villagers a gentle smile of condolence but he didn't see her. 

The survivors were given a choice; allow themselves to be relocated to another village or sign up to serve the King go to the heart of Mirkwood. Many didn't have the skills necessary to serve in a vast metropolis like Mirkwood's center city so they opted for relocation. Others took jobs as seamstresses, cooks, healer's assistants and many other jobs reserved for the lowest class of elves. Joining the army was another way to serve the King but very few were skilled enough to merit entrance. 

Still, young Tauriel had pride instilled in her by her father and if she was going to be a servant then she was going to serve in the most honourable way she could. She was all but laughed at when she went to sign up for entrance into the army. The Squad Captain who was in charge of recruitment looked her up and down. Clothed in a simple, green dress, hair flowing free and without shoes she must have looked like a child wanting to play with their father's work tools.

Still, no-one was refused without a fair chance to prove themselves. 

She and three other candidates were pitted against each other in a simple contest. Whoever was the last standing was put forward for formal training. Others would have to try the next time recruitment became an issue for the army or go on to live a different life. 

Tauriel was the youngest of the four contestants, two of whom were from her village. The other she didn't recognise. For a moment, as she stood in the arena facing her opponents and feeling eyes on her from all directions she wondered what in the name of Aule she was doing. Still, she couldn't back out now. 

The two males from her village went down fairly quickly. They were after all untrained and desperate. Tauriel on the other had had been in instilled with something other than just pride by her father. He had spent much of her youth teacher her the ways of a soldier. There wasn't much else he could teach her as life in the army and life in that small village with Tauriel's mother was all he knew. This was the only legacy he could leave her though he had spent most of the lessons hoping and praying that she would never have occasion to use them. Much better she should learn to sing and recant the lore her mother enchanted the villagers with. 

That was not to be so. 

She was covered in cuts and bruises and was panting madly after a long and hard battle with the final opponent whose name she would never get to know. He was better than her and she knew it. Still, Tauriel refused to give up unless she simply couldn't stand anymore. 

"Enough!" called a commanding yet aloof voice from the stands.

Tauriel looked up to see the King with his hand in air. She had never seen the King before but even without his crown she knew it was him. He was the personification of Elven immortality. His hair and skin were fair and flawless, his voice and his eyes held a steadfastness that couldn't be possessed by anyone who hadn't lived and seen most of what the world had to offer.

"I would like both these soldiers in my army," he said simply, ending the contest. 

Tauriel was so stunned that she stood there for a few seconds just looking at her opponent as if he could provide some answers. It was only years later that she would come to realise ... with no narcissism that despite that fact that she was losing the King meant, he had wanted her in his army. 

All through her training and her first decades of service she had not fought for her King. She had fought for her bread and butter and a warm place to lay her head. She often thought of her parents and wondered how her father would have coped had it been he who was left alive out of the three of them. She tried to be strong like him and for the most part she succeeded. It wasn't easy being a Silvan elf in the King's army. The female soldiers especially looked down on her, speaking about her while she was in the room as if she was not there. The male soldiers were a little more discreet but she had heard them whisper things behind her back that were just as nasty as those from her barrack mates. 

She was given the most menial of jobs most of the time despite the fact that she was just as good a soldier as any of them and no better at sewing, cleaning or washing than any of her upper class comrades. 

She knew what to do though. She kept her anger bottled inside and unleashed it during training and on the battlefield in defense of her home. She may have had no love for the King but she loved the forest and if there was anything besides herself and the memory of her parents that she fought for it was the forest. 

Still though, she dreamed, much like she did as a child of what was beyond the borders of Mirkwood. There was a huge, great world out there and whether it was terrible or wonderful or both there was a huge part of her that wanted to see it. 

And as she worked her way up the ranks until she finally came face to face with her King and learned that he had been keeping a small part of his all seeing gaze on her as she progressed in her military career. "I knew you were something different," he had said the day he had told her he wanted to her to personally take her under his wing. She was barely a hundred years old when he said this and it is possible that even he didn't know how right he was.

She was different. Elves were meant to be immovable, constant beings who looked at life like a passing wind. Mortals were much rasher and free spirited creatures because they were guaranteed an end to their life and that made them much more eager to live. 

Tauriel despite being an elf, behaved like a mortal and it wasn't just down to her youth like Thranduil had thought it was. Elves created a place for themselves in the world and stuck to it, they didn't dream of far off lands, of different peoples. Elves didn't interrupt their reading lessons to ask what languages other beings of middle earth spoke. Elves (of Mirkwood anyway) didn't shed tears for beings that were just going to die eventually anyway. It was like a small part of her knew that she only had a limited time to live.

If any elf was going to fall in love with a dwarf it was Tauriel.

________

The night sky could barely be seen through all the smoke. The stars were shining but only the brightest could be seen. However, not many were looking at them. Only two. 

Kili was bound to his uncle and his heritage, both of which now resided in The Lonely Mountain.

Tauriel was bound to her King and her home, both of which needed her now more than ever.

So they did the only thing they could do. Outside of Dale, surrounded by the smoke and destruction Smaug had left behind, they made love. 

It would not be the last time they saw each other but it would be the last time they held each other and spoke of stars and promises. Both of which they knew were forever outwith their grasp.

________

If anyone was to ever fall in love it was these two.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't expect this to be as Tauriel centered as it became (especially since it was only meant to be a few hundred words but curse me I just can't seen to do that) but she is such an interesting character I had to write down as much as I could about her.
> 
> I remember reading Evangeline Lilly saying that Tauriel's history was that her home and parents were destroyed by Orcs and Thranduil kind of took her under his wing.
> 
> That is backed up by the fact that Legolas said to her in the film, "For 600 years my father has protected you, favoured you."
> 
> I so wish I could have done more on the relationship between Thranduil and Tauriel because it is so interesting. It is a King/Servant relationship but it is also more complicated than that. 
> 
> Maybe I will explore that more in another story but I have a lot on my plate so I honestly can't tell you when that will be.
> 
> So hope you enjoyed this. Please comment.


End file.
